Fahrenheit

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT FAHRENHEIT - PAGE 5

By David Bailey MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Frigid arctic air held the U.S. Midwest and Northeast in its icy grip on Wednesday, with the cold so dangerous that municipal emergency warming centers opened up and ski resorts shut down. The National Weather Service warned the wind chill could make the temperature feel like 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit(minus 40 degrees Celsius) in parts of Northern Minnesota until noon on Thursday. Wintry conditions from Minneapolis to Washington marked the coldest conditions in many parts of the United States in four years, but were nowhere near the record lows for January, meteorologists said.

Was Dean P. Johnson's opinion piece written to entertain ("The great divide over units of measure; Why haven't we embraced the metric system?" Commentary, March 25)? The English system is working. But we should not consider the subject emotionally or take it as a matter of national pride. We should switch to the metric system not because everyone else uses it but because it is so much superior. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It is so natural that it seems as if there is no system at all. Over the years, I have gotten used to Fahrenheit, the ounce and so on. Let's face it; this is a cumbersome system.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ray Bradbury, a giant of American literature who helped popularize science fiction with poetic, cerebral works such as "The Martian Chronicles," died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91. Bradbury brought not only futuristic vision but literary sensibilities to his more than 500 works published including "Fahrenheit 451," a classic dystopian novel about book censorship in a future society, and other favorites such as "The Illustrated Man" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes.

People may have gone to the cinema to watch newsreels during World War II, but in the ensuing decades, the lines became pretty clear: News was delivered on paper and on TV screens, and movie theaters were where you went to escape reality. But the arrival of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" in theaters nationwide Friday heralds a reversal of this equation. Documentaries, traditionally a speck on the cultural periphery, have moved front-and-center in the national discussion, achieving a relevancy and popularity that would have been inconceivable just two years ago. "I think it has a lot to do with the fact that there's this kind of inverse relationship between how well the media is explaining to people what's going on in the world and people's anxiety about what's going on in the world," said Joel Bakan, writer of the upcoming documentary "The Corporation," based on his book of the same name.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When it comes to exercise, some like it hot, some like it hotter, and some like it under the air conditioner. Experts say heat can be help your workout, boosting circulation and increasing flexibility, but it's a relationship that can also turn nasty. "Your body is engineered to exercise in the heat," said Michele Olson, Ph.D., professor of exercise science at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama. "This is why we sweat. " Olson, who is also an expert with the American College of Sports Medicine, said it's actually the evaporation of sweat from the skin that cools our bodies to maintain our normal body temperature.

A modern dance company will offer a free sampling of lighthearted and serious numbers Thursday at the Schaumburg Township District Library. The 98.6 Fahrenheit Dance Company expects to perform, among other pieces, a comic dance portraying the daily routine of a man and woman's relationship. The company numbers six members, including director Donna Jagielski, 31, of Palatine, who works by day as a dance instructor for the Arlington Heights Park District. Jagielski, who formed the group in 1988 and choreographs all of the performances, described the troupe as exciting but not apt to do anything strange or avant garde.

Dear Tom, I once heard that you can calculate the outside temperature by counting the number of cricket chirps. You take that number and either add or multiply it by another number, but I can't remember how to finish the equation. Can you help? Maggie Dear Maggie, The approach apparently really does work, and is even simpler than you recall. A number of entomological studies have been conducted on tree crickets, the ones actually capable of temperature measurement, says the Chicago Botanic Garden's Tom Tiddens, yielding this simple formula: Count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, then merely add 39. The reported result is the air temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

Dear Tom, Your recent question about the cicadas prompted this question. I once heard that you can tell the temperature by the frequency of cricket chirps. Is that true? Leon Hoffman, Chicago Dear Leon, Yes, it is true. The chirping sound that crickets make is produced by rubbing their wings together. Because crickets are cold-blooded, their body temperature varies with the temperature of their environment. As the air temperature rises, so does the cricket's body temperature resulting in an increase in metabolism which in turn results in an increase of the frequency of their chirping.

I was shocked by Mr. Bryne's comment on the absence of global warming for 10 years ("Save us From the Politics of Science", Opinion, Jan.31). Does he not read the paper that publishes his column? The Tribune reported that the 13 warmest years have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997, the extent of Arctic sea ice in 2011 was the second lowest on record, and its volume was the lowest ("Factbox: Will 2012 top 2011 for record weather disasters?", News, Dec.27,2011). He only need to check with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

NEW YORK/MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - A deadly blast of arctic air shattered decades-old temperature records as it enveloped the eastern United States on Tuesday, snarling air, road and rail travel, driving energy prices higher and overwhelming shelters for homeless people. At least nine deaths have been reported across the country connected with the polar air mass that swept over North America during the past few days. Authorities have put about half of the United States under a wind chill warning or cold weather advisory.